I was blessed with the opportunity to attend this great professor's lectures for a year. I could have said "fortunate" after the goddess Fortuna, or "lucky enough", but Prof Gerson's Socratic explanation of what "luck" is.. or rather isn't, so I must say blessed, as in something willed by the necessarily spiritual or non-material , willing Mind so giving as to permit such graces. Thanks very , very much professor. The real world is a fine place to be.
So confused by this. Im sympathetic to platonism and not a naturalist but how in the hell would this view entail spirtual anything? Im atheist and it doesn't follow
_in Hellenistic astrology, which actually began in the classical period, some big names might come to mind, topic of Fortune is studied by an all-important point in the birth chart called the lot of fortune. You would be dumbfounded to discover it works. See the late Robert Schmidt, scholar, genius._
Thanks for the lecture. I am very grateful for your work. Can you direct me to the discussion you mentioned in Plotinus where he argues that our sense of personal identity is the basis for making moral choices?
In 43:03 Gerson addresses the 'justified' portion of knowledge being 'justified, true belief'. He covers the difference between being randomly correct and having knowledge: that difference is the basis of the belief on evidence and logic. He recites that the problem is that evidence is no guarantee (because, we can never know whether the evidence is correct or complete, or actually leads to the true conclusion). However, this is not a valid criticism of the definition of knowledge as being justified, true belief. There is no requirement that knowledge need necessarily be a guarantee of itself. Our belief in x could be knowledge, even if we have no way to know that it is knowledge and not merely belief. While this presents a problem for human beings, because we have a goal of knowing things - that does not make it a problem for the definition of knowledge. It just means we are in a cosmic situation we do not prefer (that we can, in fact, know something - but for any given thing we believe, there is no guarantee that belief is knowledge). There is no basis for judging a definition of knowledge by the criteria that, in order to be a good definition, it must make possible the fulfillment of any of our goals as human beings (including absolute confirmation). Gerson introduces the question, "If it doesn't guarantee we are correct, then what is the difference between belief based on evidence or no evidence?" Assuming this question is actually a statement that there is no difference, then there are two logical problems with it. (1) It presumes that things cannot be objectively different from one another, even if there is no way even in principle for us to know the difference between them. Most people I think would agree that is ludicrous. (2) It exaggerates the difference between a random belief and a belief that is more likely to be correct than random chance. In the absence of certainty, it is rational and reasonable to resort to playing the odds. And belief based on evidence is betting on the favored horse. This can be easily demonstrated as the more successful strategy in countless ways.
It is odd, and it's an interesting thesis to think about. Perhaps it makes more sense if we pay particular attention to Kant's view that the things-in-themselves are non-spatiotemporal and that time, space, and the categories of the understanding are idealities for Kant, albeit in a different sense. For Kant as for Plato, arguably, the world of sensory experience is not what is ultimately real -- although the situation is of course complicated, since Kant thinks there is nothing positive that we can rationally say or cognize about things-in-themselves except by way of presuppositions in the exercise of practical reason. Something similar goes for Leibniz, whom Gerson also calls a Platonist, in regard to space and causation. But Gerson seems to be deliberately stretching the meaning of 'Platonism' in the same way that Rorty does, so as to as to locate his own position vis-a-vis Rorty's relativism and nominalism.
Divided Line The one and the many. If two things are distinct and yet the same, one's knowledge of them cannot be reduced to their matter but the mind must be abstracting their form, as in the word "information". As such what the mind picks up is manifestly non-material, or spiritual. And that which judges must also be imaterial, or spiritual.
Tom More However, the problem here is that we haven't established any immateriality of mind because by Occam's razor, there is no reason to think that human consciousness which abstracts inductively to arrive at the recognition of lower forms or which inherits the higher forms is anything other than the product of natural selection. It's simple enough to demonstrate the evolutionary utility of such an adaptation as human intelligence. There is in fact no reason to posit the existence of the supernatural, if that's what you mean by spirituality. There isn't even evidence that Plato himself would have argued otherwise. When Plato says the "soul" he means human consciousness. When he says "God" he refers to the Good, the original abstract object which is presumably the source of all the others.
Divided Line No. This is nonsense clinging to naturalism and plato at once. How can an "abstraction" (which is a non-sense idea) be the "source" of anything? Abstractions, if not actually forms, which cannot be material, are fictional items constructed by the human mind which can't even be true or false.
iwpoe The abstraction is not the thing itself, but its image, just as the shadow on the wall of the cave is not the thing itself but its image. The prisoners in the allegory do what you have done here and confused the thing itself with its image. Read the 10th book of the republic and Plato's account of imitation. It's explained thoroughly. Abstractions are images of things, not things. All that you can perceive are the recreated images of what is real. The task of the philosopher is to see behind those images and make an account for how they are cast on the stage of the mind. It's similar to what Kant called noumena as distinct from phenomena. Reality is there to be accounted for and known, Plato argues, but all we have to work with are recreated images of it as the senses and brain recreate reality for us on the stage of our minds, or in our "souls." Only reason can reveal the reality which casts those images. That aside, what the abstraction describes isn't the source, it's the destination we would reach in a theoretical but unobtainable perfection as end product. The good, as Plato explains, is the "source" in that it is the unobtainable perfection of the beginning. It's unclear if the good is both the beginning and end, if they are not contradictory aspects of an original unity. This argument is pursued at length in the Parmenides. An abstract object is a *potentiality,* a source or destination which bookends any existing process of becoming and therefore can explain and predict the pattern of its changing surface appearance. Similarity and difference are apparent features of an empirically verifiable or "natural" universe. What are things becoming if not their forms? It's a theory that explains spontaneous order that is apparent in the universe. Only theology in the modern era attempts to answer this question and does so by way of god's existence, intelligent design, etc. Plato answers it by way of reason. Platonism is a religion of natural science just as Pythagoreanism was. The form is not material, but its participants are, and what explains the pattern of their changing surface appearances, or of their "becoming" is only the form itself. How could what can be observed in the becoming of one thing tell us anything about the becoming of anything else were it not for their participation in the same form? If the form did not exist? Indeed, the things which become and approach that form by various degrees are what don't exist. Only the forms exist and everything which participates in them only approaches them but never truly is. For theists and anti empiricists to try to coopt Platonism is a gross misunderstanding of the theory of the forms. God, in Platonism, is an abstraction which describes the destination of becoming if we were perfect, if the things which approach being and never truly are were to achieve being itself having fully become. Since no thing ever becomes the form in which it participates fully, all things become intelligible only because they can be understood in relation to their form. What is nonsense is the idea that Platonism provides an argument for the supernatural. He does not, quite the contrary. The "soul," or consciousness, is eternal, but it is not a supernatural concept. And faith is antithetical to reason, they are in fact opposing concepts. Socrates was martyred for reason, not for faith, as Jesus is said to have done.
If you actually listened to the lecture, Gerson has a very broad definition of Platonism that goes beyond the philosophy of Plato himself. According to his definition of Platonism as any philosophical view that is not proceeding from naturalistic, skeptical, mechanistic, and nominalist presuppositions, I would have to completely disagree with you and say such views continue to be relevant and in some sense constitute the essence of philosophy as traditionally understood (e.g. distinctions between sensible and intellectual, apparent and real, etc.)
5:16 - 5:24 . “Platonism should not, therefore, be identified with a particular philosophical position that is taken to follow from these principles, but more generally with the principles themselves.” Hold this L.
This is an exemplary contemporary Platonist of the highest calibre. A truly masterful lecture.
I was blessed with the opportunity to attend this great professor's lectures for a year. I could have said "fortunate" after the goddess Fortuna, or "lucky enough", but Prof Gerson's Socratic explanation of what "luck" is.. or rather isn't, so I must say blessed, as in something willed by the necessarily spiritual or non-material , willing Mind so giving as to permit such graces. Thanks very , very much professor. The real world is a fine place to be.
So confused by this. Im sympathetic to platonism and not a naturalist but how in the hell would this view entail spirtual anything? Im atheist and it doesn't follow
_in Hellenistic astrology, which actually began in the classical period, some big names might come to mind, topic of Fortune is studied by an all-important point in the birth chart called the lot of fortune. You would be dumbfounded to discover it works. See the late Robert Schmidt, scholar, genius._
Thank you for posting this
Brilliant professor. Doctor Gerson is the best professor I have ever had.
meaning full content more ever good communication as per the satisfaction of learners.
Thanks for the lecture. I am very grateful for your work. Can you direct me to the discussion you mentioned in Plotinus where he argues that our sense of personal identity is the basis for making moral choices?
Dang this dudes a real one for typing out the whole lecture.
_"the written word is the dead word, the spoken word is the living word" -- Plato_
What a fucking chad
Where was this lecture given?
Duquesne University
Can anyone help with how to cite this lecture in a paper?
gphsc.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/gerson-platonism-naturalism.pdf
But actually all this is included in Gerson's book from Plato to Platonism.
In 43:03 Gerson addresses the 'justified' portion of knowledge being 'justified, true belief'. He covers the difference between being randomly correct and having knowledge: that difference is the basis of the belief on evidence and logic. He recites that the problem is that evidence is no guarantee (because, we can never know whether the evidence is correct or complete, or actually leads to the true conclusion). However, this is not a valid criticism of the definition of knowledge as being justified, true belief. There is no requirement that knowledge need necessarily be a guarantee of itself. Our belief in x could be knowledge, even if we have no way to know that it is knowledge and not merely belief. While this presents a problem for human beings, because we have a goal of knowing things - that does not make it a problem for the definition of knowledge. It just means we are in a cosmic situation we do not prefer (that we can, in fact, know something - but for any given thing we believe, there is no guarantee that belief is knowledge). There is no basis for judging a definition of knowledge by the criteria that, in order to be a good definition, it must make possible the fulfillment of any of our goals as human beings (including absolute confirmation).
Gerson introduces the question, "If it doesn't guarantee we are correct, then what is the difference between belief based on evidence or no evidence?" Assuming this question is actually a statement that there is no difference, then there are two logical problems with it. (1) It presumes that things cannot be objectively different from one another, even if there is no way even in principle for us to know the difference between them. Most people I think would agree that is ludicrous. (2) It exaggerates the difference between a random belief and a belief that is more likely to be correct than random chance. In the absence of certainty, it is rational and reasonable to resort to playing the odds. And belief based on evidence is betting on the favored horse. This can be easily demonstrated as the more successful strategy in countless ways.
Oh Gerson....
To say that Kant was a platonist is very odd
Same presuppositions.
@@dharmadefender3932 which are?
It is odd, and it's an interesting thesis to think about. Perhaps it makes more sense if we pay particular attention to Kant's view that the things-in-themselves are non-spatiotemporal and that time, space, and the categories of the understanding are idealities for Kant, albeit in a different sense. For Kant as for Plato, arguably, the world of sensory experience is not what is ultimately real -- although the situation is of course complicated, since Kant thinks there is nothing positive that we can rationally say or cognize about things-in-themselves except by way of presuppositions in the exercise of practical reason. Something similar goes for Leibniz, whom Gerson also calls a Platonist, in regard to space and causation. But Gerson seems to be deliberately stretching the meaning of 'Platonism' in the same way that Rorty does, so as to as to locate his own position vis-a-vis Rorty's relativism and nominalism.
Indeed. I also found that to be a rather strange comment.
Yah he is not speaking from his heart.
A contemporary political Platonism is an exciting idea, but he seriously lost me with the immateriality of mind argument.
Divided Line The one and the many. If two things are distinct and yet the same, one's knowledge of them cannot be reduced to their matter but the mind must be abstracting their form, as in the word "information". As such what the mind picks up is manifestly non-material, or spiritual. And that which judges must also be imaterial, or spiritual.
Tom More Aha! You're right. That's a really wonderful way of explaining it.
Tom More However, the problem here is that we haven't established any immateriality of mind because by Occam's razor, there is no reason to think that human consciousness which abstracts inductively to arrive at the recognition of lower forms or which inherits the higher forms is anything other than the product of natural selection.
It's simple enough to demonstrate the evolutionary utility of such an adaptation as human intelligence. There is in fact no reason to posit the existence of the supernatural, if that's what you mean by spirituality. There isn't even evidence that Plato himself would have argued otherwise.
When Plato says the "soul" he means human consciousness. When he says "God" he refers to the Good, the original abstract object which is presumably the source of all the others.
Divided Line No. This is nonsense clinging to naturalism and plato at once. How can an "abstraction" (which is a non-sense idea) be the "source" of anything? Abstractions, if not actually forms, which cannot be material, are fictional items constructed by the human mind which can't even be true or false.
iwpoe The abstraction is not the thing itself, but its image, just as the shadow on the wall of the cave is not the thing itself but its image. The prisoners in the allegory do what you have done here and confused the thing itself with its image. Read the 10th book of the republic and Plato's account of imitation. It's explained thoroughly. Abstractions are images of things, not things. All that you can perceive are the recreated images of what is real. The task of the philosopher is to see behind those images and make an account for how they are cast on the stage of the mind. It's similar to what Kant called noumena as distinct from phenomena. Reality is there to be accounted for and known, Plato argues, but all we have to work with are recreated images of it as the senses and brain recreate reality for us on the stage of our minds, or in our "souls." Only reason can reveal the reality which casts those images.
That aside, what the abstraction describes isn't the source, it's the destination we would reach in a theoretical but unobtainable perfection as end product. The good, as Plato explains, is the "source" in that it is the unobtainable perfection of the beginning. It's unclear if the good is both the beginning and end, if they are not contradictory aspects of an original unity. This argument is pursued at length in the Parmenides. An abstract object is a *potentiality,* a source or destination which bookends any existing process of becoming and therefore can explain and predict the pattern of its changing surface appearance.
Similarity and difference are apparent features of an empirically verifiable or "natural" universe. What are things becoming if not their forms? It's a theory that explains spontaneous order that is apparent in the universe. Only theology in the modern era attempts to answer this question and does so by way of god's existence, intelligent design, etc. Plato answers it by way of reason. Platonism is a religion of natural science just as Pythagoreanism was. The form is not material, but its participants are, and what explains the pattern of their changing surface appearances, or of their "becoming" is only the form itself.
How could what can be observed in the becoming of one thing tell us anything about the becoming of anything else were it not for their participation in the same form? If the form did not exist? Indeed, the things which become and approach that form by various degrees are what don't exist. Only the forms exist and everything which participates in them only approaches them but never truly is.
For theists and anti empiricists to try to coopt Platonism is a gross misunderstanding of the theory of the forms. God, in Platonism, is an abstraction which describes the destination of becoming if we were perfect, if the things which approach being and never truly are were to achieve being itself having fully become. Since no thing ever becomes the form in which it participates fully, all things become intelligible only because they can be understood in relation to their form.
What is nonsense is the idea that Platonism provides an argument for the supernatural. He does not, quite the contrary.
The "soul," or consciousness, is eternal, but it is not a supernatural concept. And faith is antithetical to reason, they are in fact opposing concepts. Socrates was martyred for reason, not for faith, as Jesus is said to have done.
There only area Platonism should be talked about is in philosophical history. It has not been relevant for over two millennia!
reddit
If you actually listened to the lecture, Gerson has a very broad definition of Platonism that goes beyond the philosophy of Plato himself. According to his definition of Platonism as any philosophical view that is not proceeding from naturalistic, skeptical, mechanistic, and nominalist presuppositions, I would have to completely disagree with you and say such views continue to be relevant and in some sense constitute the essence of philosophy as traditionally understood (e.g. distinctions between sensible and intellectual, apparent and real, etc.)
5:16 - 5:24 . “Platonism should not, therefore, be identified with a particular philosophical position that is taken to follow from these principles, but more generally with the principles themselves.”
Hold this L.